


keepsake

by DramaQkin



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:15:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24425644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DramaQkin/pseuds/DramaQkin
Summary: Tsukishima saw a gold ring on Hinata's finger and knew it was too late.
Relationships: Background Hinata Shoyou/Kageyama Tobio, Bokuto Koutarou/Yachi Hitoka, Minor or Background Relationship(s), One-Sided Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou - Relationship, One-sided Hinata Shouyou/Tsukishima Kei
Comments: 4
Kudos: 83





	keepsake

The flowers took root the moment Tsukishima saw the simple gold ring around Hinata’s finger. It smiled up at him from Hinata’s hand, almost begging for his attention. He coughed once into his handkerchief. A few petals sat innocently on the pale cloth. 

“You alright?”

“Never better,” Tsukishima said. He sent a pointed look at the ring. “Who’s that from?”

Hinata smiled sheepishly at him. Tsukishima felt something moving, crawling up the back of his throat. 

_Say something,_ it told him.

“You can’t tell anyone yet,” Hinata said. “But Tobio and I got married in Chiba a month ago.”

“Fancy that.” 

“What?”

Tsukishima coughed meekly into his handkerchief and walked away. 

A week after that Kuroo thought it was appropriate to round up the third gym boys for drinks. Why Tsukishima decided to go, he couldn’t say. All third gym boys were present and accounted for, save for Lev, who suddenly had a photoshoot that day.

The night was not comfortable. The ring on Hinata’s finger kept sparkling, and the flowers kept going _beat beat beat_ up against Tsukishima's throat. He could hardly keep his drink down. He kept excusing himself to the bathroom to cough up flowers, staining the white porcelain red with blood. On his fourth trip the bathroom Akaashi cornered him. 

“I know you have Hanahaki,” he said. “I have something that might help. Come with me.” 

Outside, under the flickering light of the only working lamppost, Akaashi offered him a cigarette. 

“Special brand. It’s technically a weed killer but it helps keep the flowers down for a bit if you can’t afford surgery yet.” 

Tsukishima took the cigarette quietly. Akaashi taught him how to breathe the smoke in, how to flood the flowers in his lungs and throat. For the first time that night his coughing stopped, and his breathing was almost easy. 

“Thanks,” he said. Akaashi shrugged and took a long drag of his cigarette. “The surgery’s gonna be expensive.”

“Well, yeah. That’s why we save up for it.” Akaashi said. “Just telling them would be a whole lot cheaper though.”

“I’m not confessing to a married man, Akaashi.” 

“Oh. Me too.”

“What? Who?”

“Bokuto’s marrying Yachi next year.” 

“I’ve got you beat. Kageyama and Hinata finally—” Tsukishima barely got the name out of his mouth before the petals rushed out of him. Akaashi rubbed his back comfortingly through it and offered him another cigarette.

“I know a good doctor willing to take emergency patients for a decent price. I’m going to them in two weeks.”

“I don’t want the surgery,” Tsukishima croaked. He knew full well what would happen. 

Akiteru went through the surgery two years ago, and he was never the same. His gaze was hollow when he stared at a volleyball, or at Tsukishima’s dinosaur toy collection that he helped curate. It was worse when he looked at Tsukishima or their mother. He would smile, and for a fraction of a second his eyebrows would knit together in confusion, like he was trying very hard to remember what he was supposed to feel. 

Even Tsukishima had feelings he wanted to cling to. His newfound love for volleyball, his stupid fondness for dinosaurs, his love for the few friends he had and even through the tangle of vines making a home in his respiratory system, he wanted to cling to the warmth loving Hinata brought him. 

“You’re the last person I expected to be an idiot, Tsukishima.”

“I can’t live like that.” 

“You’ll live, and that’s what’s important,” Akaashi said. They were in the same situation. Tsukishima felt that Akaashi was comforting himself with his words, too, so he kept quiet. 

Having Hanahaki disease was like drowning, if users on random forums could be believed. Just before the disease took over the body completely, there was a lull. How long it lasted varied. Some people said they had a day, others said they only had a few hours of respite. Clear lungs, easy breathing, no flowers. Like a last call. 

After the lull was when the disease was at its worst. A person could be throwing up flowers for hours on end, killing them. There were stories about people, unable to afford surgery or unwilling to get it, would crawl into the most comfortable corner they could find and lie there until their bodies were overgrown.

Tsukishima woke up that morning and found that he didn’t even need to spend half an hour coughing up the flowers that got stuck in his throat in the night. He almost wanted to laugh; his day of respite was just in time. 

The Sendai Frogs were playing against the Black Jackals that day. When he saw Hinata on the other side of the court no flowers threatened to spill from his throat, no odd coiling feeling around his heart. He just felt its butterfly _beat beat beat_ as Hinata smiled at him. 

It was easy to breathe and even easier to think. He blocked a spike each from Bokuto, Sakusa, even that blonde Miya. Hinata was cunning on the court — Tsukishima almost fell for one of his setups and almost spiked a ball into a trap. The way Hinata smiled proudly at him when he hit a cross instead would’ve killed him if he wasn’t in a lull. 

On their last set he was able to block Hinata. Falling back down from the peak of his jump must have lasted an eternity. All the years Tsukishima spent watching him was all for that moment. When the ball bounced into the other side of the court and the game was done neither Tsukishima nor Hinata moved.

“Consider it a gift.” Tsukishima said. “My last block, from me to you.” 

“What, was my spike too strong? Break a finger?” Hinata said teasingly. “Or wait, don’t tell me! Are you moving to Division One next season?” 

Tsukishima coughed into his hand. 

“Yeah, sure.”

“Try out for the Jackals!”

“No thank you. You were a perfect opponent, and I don’t plan on ruining that for myself.”

“But we could be perfect teammates!” 

“Again, no thank you, and I doubt it.”

He could feel the flowers making themselves known. They wanted to rush out of him so badly, wanted to speak for him, to grow and live where his words died: his throat. There were even tiny itches all over his skin. Before Tsukishima knew what was happening a tiny yellow flower blossomed out of his arm. 

“Tsukki, you’re…” 

Tsukishima walked away before he could hear anything else. He covered himself up quickly, and after explaining his situation to his captain and lying about going to the hospital, left.

Fortunately no one caught up to him, and even though he wanted his walk home to be quiet his phone vibrated incessantly in his pocket. He ignored it.

He could feel flowers poking out of the sides of his face by the time he got his apartment door open. With vines crawling up his fingers he turned his stereo on, turning the music up loud enough to flood his apartment. He fished the garish pink shirt Hinata gave him from his closet and put it on, mildly amazed at how many flowers were poking out of his torso. 

With a satisfied sigh, he rested his head on his pillow. The memory of the game was enough to comfort him when the flowers spilled out of him, scratching his throat at their rush to leave his body. If he was lucky his coughing would cease soon and he could sleep painlessly, and if whoever found him was to be just as lucky, he’d be a morbidly beautiful thing, more flowers than flesh. 

Tsukishima closed his eyes and went to sleep. The weight of the vines growing in his chest was almost comforting. It felt like a hug.

If he was having a fever dream, it was far too soon. Someone was grasping for him, and he was dimly aware of someone calling his name. Too soon, he thought. He saw a number of deep red stains on his bedsheets, only dotted with a few dainty flowers. It was unfortunate that he was still a body. 

“...call an ambulance!”

 _No_. 

“Don’t do that.” He couldn’t feel his lips move, he could hardly hear himself. The petals were soft and suffocating in his throat, the flowers bursting painfully out of his skin. Whoever he was talking to leaned in close to hear. “It’ll take away everything.”

“You’re dying, whatever you lose we could give back.”

Tsukishima grasped at the blurry shape in front of him. He felt the porous fabric of a sports jersey. “Can’t lose it...volleyball...friends...Hinata…” he was rambling, it was so hard to breathe. “Don’t let me lose him too…” 

He would have pleaded more, but it was too late, there were sirens ringing in his ear and the world was going dark, and just before he fell unconscious he thought he heard Hinata begging him to stay. 

He prayed for the flowers to take him.

When Tsukishima woke up again the smell of iodine was flooding his nose. He knew what happened as soon as he felt the stiff gauze on his neck and chest, but he couldn’t even feel mad. Even staring at the bandages, clear as day with his glasses, he felt nothing. It just had to happen. 

“You’re awake.” Hinata looked like a mess. He was drowning in someone’s jacket, and not even the sharp scent of iodine hid his stink. “Your mom and brother are downstairs in the cafeteria, I’ll get them right now.” 

He stood up shakily. Tsukishima’s attempt to speak came out as a cough, and that was enough to make Hinata pause. 

“Talk,” Tsukishima said. 

“Now? Your family’s waiting.”

“Talk now while we’re alone.” Tsukishima’s throat felt dry and his tongue was barely moving but he had to talk. “What happened wasn’t your fault. That was you who found me, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t die so you don’t need to sit there anymore. Go back to Kageyama and get some sleep.”

“Do you remember what you said? At all?” 

“Not really.”

Hinata stood with his back to Tsukishima, but he could hear him start to sob. 

“Why are you crying?” Tsukishima asked, not unkindly. 

“Because you’re comforting me, and you’re the one in the hospital.” He wiped his face with his sleeve. “Do you have any idea what you’re gonna do after this?”

“Retire from volleyball, start work at the museum.”

Hinata wiped his face again, and after a moment of quiet he turned around and faced Tsukishima, his face only slightly pink and puffy. 

“Right before we got help you said you didn’t want to lose any of that.”

Tsukishima shrugged. “I didn’t know better.” 

“You said you didn’t want to lose me.” 

Anything that came before Tsukishima woke up in the hospital room felt so distant, like there was an ocean between his past and his present, and beyond even that was a dam. What was left of him was arid. Inhospitable. Nothing would thrive in what was left of him; not weeds, not flowers.

Thinking this, he said, “Yes, I did.”

“You did,” Hinata echoed. Was it pity in his eyes? Was it grief? Tsukishima had no way of knowing. The sunlight bounced on the ring on Hinata’s finger. It sparkled as he moved his hand across his face. “I am so sorry, Tsukki.”

“I told you it wasn’t your fault.”

“No,” Hinata said. “I lost you. Everyone did.”

“I’ll live.”

Hinata smiled sadly at him and nodded, as if he completely understood. “I’ll go get your family, then.”

As Tsukishima sat quietly in his bed he wondered what was there to be understood. There was a flower in a tiny vase next to his bed, not yet withered but not quite alive, which he took and wrapped neatly around his finger. He spent a moment looking at it before he put it back. 

_Fancy_ _that_ , he thought.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> *points at kei* i just think he's a neat conduit to vent through and constantly torture. can't bring myself to kill him yet. twitter got me thinking abt hanahaki again, so here i am


End file.
